


blood on my name

by skeletalparade (boythighs)



Series: through living hell [2]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Heavy Angst, M/M, Pregnancy, Trans Male Character, Zombie Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-26
Updated: 2016-12-26
Packaged: 2018-09-12 10:19:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9067477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boythighs/pseuds/skeletalparade
Summary: What ever words he'd had ready die on his tongue. Yuuri’s face is speckled with blood, lips parting as he sucks in deep breath after deep, wheezing breath. The gun in his hands shakes, and some twisted, strange part of Viktor decides that this Yuuri is more beautiful than any Yuuri he has ever seen before. The fresh glow of the kill looks good on him.
Yuuri looks at Viktor, the shaggy, asymmetrical length of his hair veiling part of his face, but not enough to hide the weak, breathtaking smile he flashes at Viktor.
“They’re not taking you from me just yet.”
Viktor has never been more madly, wildly in love with anyone in his entire life.





	

**Author's Note:**

> this series is getting updated before Catching Butterflies because i'm honestly just feeling it more right now, idk.
> 
> thanks to everyone who commented on the first part! you guys picked up on all my hints and most of you guessed right about yuuri being pregnant. good job. slow clap it out.

By the time the blues in the sky have faded into dusky purples and oranges, the straps of Viktor’s backpack are digging uncomfortably into his shoulders. He wills himself to hold out, refusing to stop, because he knows that the nearest town is just another half hour away at most. The images of the maps that had been pinned to the walls in the recon team headquarters are imprinted on his mind, and he relies on them solely as he leads the others to what he can only hope is safety. Yurio tails the group, throwing backward glances over his shoulder every few minutes, adjusting his backpack and running his index finger and forefinger over the magazine of his gun, barrel tucked beneath the waistband of his jeans.

Otabek has a radio much like their old one, except smaller, clipped to his belt. Mostly, it is nothing but static whispering to them softly as they walk, but maybe once an hour music will drift through the speakers instead - eerie, like the dead are still talking. Viktor knows that all of the radio stations out there don’t mean anything; there are no people inside of them, anymore. Only blood splatters, ripped leather chairs, and the stench of death. The recon teams had learned very early on that radio stations were traps. The infected always loved to nest in them.

When the treeline breaks, none of them act as relieved as they would like to feel. Viktor isn’t surprised by this, not one bit. The city being within seeing distance does not mean that they are safe - there’s a reason why it’s been abandoned, why the people who had once lived in it are either long gone, dead, or flesh eating monsters.

“Be careful.” Viktor says to the others, clenching his teeth as he begins the descent down the incline of the hill. The city is in the basin of uneven terrain on all sides, and the sun is beginning to sink down low, low, low. Night is creeping up on them, and they need to find shelter. To keep going is an invitation for trouble; monsters love the night, after all. In the morning they can head back out, but they’ve been walking for upwards of six hours, and none of them have the strength to keep going, especially not Yuuri, who looks like he might vomit if he doesn’t get some rest.

As the heavens might allow, they get lucky. Nothing comes crawling out of any of the unhinged doors lining the streets, but Viktor makes all of them well aware that it doesn’t mean they aren’t being watched, being hunted. Sometimes the infected can play smart. Maybe they can’t outsmart humans just yet, but they’re getting closer to being able to accomplish as much. The thought of it is unnerving.

“It’s why you always kill on sight,” Viktor says, voice quiet. “Their brains are still working, albeit at a much slower, dumbed down level, but it does mean that they retain some sense of inductive reasoning. Even for most normal humans, behavior is learned. It’s the same for them. You never let one get away - no matter _what_ , because if they do they’ve learned something new from you, and there is nothing more dangerous than one of those things _learning_.”

Viktor guides them to a building where he makes the other three stay outside so that he can survey it. It has none of the normal signs of infected habitation; it doesn’t smell like mold or rotting flesh, which is always the biggest tell but not necessarily the most reliable. There are other things, like blood stains, or finding spots where habitual feeding has taken place. Most of them are obvious things, but sometimes… the infected can be discrete.

Viktor had been there the day JJ had died. He’d gone into a house looking for salvageable food, claiming that there were no apparent signs of infected inside, and it was Viktor who had heard his screams just moments later. He had run inside, gut turning, and what he had witnessed that afternoon would never leave his mind. The squelches of the chewing, the torn open chest, the entrails snapping out of his body like a child pulling apart gummy worms. Viktor had shot the infected until he was out of ammo, just to make sure it was dead, and he had held JJ in his arms until the wheezing had stopped, until he wasn’t convulsing anymore. With wide, horrified eyes, JJ had remained staring at the ceiling, and Viktor had watched the essence of life transcend his body.

Viktor had gone home a different man. It was the first time he’d ever seen someone die like that, and he had vowed to make it the last.

Today, the building truly is empty. It doesn’t look like much of a house anymore, the way it’s been torn apart. The furniture is overturned in the kitchen, wooden table and chairs thrown about the room. Maybe there had been an attack, once upon a time, or maybe there had just been a family desperately trying to survive in a world where survival was nothing but death row in the end. The wallpaper is scratched up though, trails of inhuman gouges from about mid-wall to the floorboards, so Viktor searches the place from top to bottom once, twice, three times more before he heads back to the front door.

“It’s safe.” He deems, and the other three file in on shaky, exhausted legs. “There are two bedrooms. One upstairs, one downstairs.”

“Both have pros and cons.” Otabek says after a moment, reaching down to turn the radio off. Finally. Viktor wasn’t going to say anything, but the static had been driving him nuts. It was just a sad, broken reminder that the rest of the world really was a desolate wasteland around them.

“Being upstairs means you have a vantage point over anything trying to get in, but it also means you’re essentially trapped if something _does_ get in.” Yurio adds on, face blank. “Being down here means you’re the first thing the infected is going to catch a whiff of, but at least you have all the viable exits at your disposal.”

Yuuri stays quiet, either taking in the information and filing it for later use, or tuning it all out to keep himself sane.

They’re working with a really tough dynamic, here. Out of all four of them, Viktor by far knows the most about the infected and what they’re up against. He’s the only one who has extensively studied their behaviors over the last two months, and learned as much about them as he possibly could in order to survive recon missions. Yurio and Otabek both have some general street knowledge; Viktor taught Yurio how to use a gun in case of an emergency, and he’s almost certain that Yurio had passed the skills on to Otabek. Yuuri, though.

He’s their weak link, as much as Viktor does not want to think about it. Right now is the time to be honest with himself, because the danger is real, and to keep lying to himself, to keep pretending that there isn’t an imbalance in skill and knowledge… it’s an easy way to get them killed.

The odds are simply not stacked in favor of Yuuri. He is pregnant, which makes him physically more weak, and he has an aversion to killing. These are not things that Viktor holds against him - he understands why Yuuri refuses to kill, but he also understands that sooner or later something will have to give. Until then, Viktor will have to responsible for both himself, and Yuuri, which makes them both liabilities.

But he’s not going to lose that goddamn baby. Even if it means dying to protect him, Viktor will make damn sure that Yuuri carries their child to term, and that both Yuuri and the child will survive. Viktor will not have it any other way.

Viktor decides that Yurio and Otabek should take the upstairs room. If anything gets in, it’s Viktor who has the best fighting chance at escaping the jaws of any beasts. From the bedroom window, Yurio and Otabek could feasibly scale the side of the building via the ivy lattice, but it would only work as a last ditch effort, and it might not work at all. Maybe the worst part, Viktor decides, is not knowing for sure about any of the possible outcomes. Their world is now fueled by what ‘what-ifs’ and ‘maybes,’ the axis spinning on misshapen odds and equations that cannot be configured. Everything's a gamble. Every step, every breath, every thought - any of it could get them killed, but any of it could also be the key to survival.

“Viktor?” Yuuri says, voice quiet enough that Viktor almost misses it. His back is pressed to the wall facing the door, which Viktor has been fixated on it for the last hour or so, willing it to stay closed through the night. Yuuri’s head is cushioned on his lap, Viktor’s fingers stuttering through his hair to offer some type of solace, some type of comfort. Vain efforts.

“Hm?” Viktor hums, eyes turning down from the door so that he can look at Yuuri. His face is so unnaturally pale, sticky sweat matting his bangs down to his forehead. He must be sick. Viktor hopes that it’s a normal sickness, not something potentially life-threatening.

Though to be fair, anything is potentially life-threatening, these days.

“Where do you think the nearest sanction is?”

With eyes closing, hands faltering, and heart trembling in his chest, Viktor gives Yuuri the only answer he is capable of giving.

“I don’t know, Yuuri.”

The quiet sob from his lap shatters any hope that Viktor has left.

☢

In a lab somewhere in the middle of Bumfuck Nowhere, unauthorized experimentations had been staged for approximately two weeks until someone had left the building reeking of toxic fumes and covered in untraceable wastes. Maybe they had known lots of people, or maybe on that particular day they had just run more errands than usual - it doesn’t matter. The point is that the virus, the toxins, had not taken long at all to begin mutating and transferring to every single person who _that_ person came in contact with, and then everyone the others had come in contact with.

Overnight, it had multiplied, and overnight, things had began to go horribly, horribly wrong.

Riots had broken out when, unexpectedly, people started getting unnaturally sick, skin sallow, yellowed, body decaying even as the person carried on _living_ and _breathing_ , and the government refused to do anything about it. There had been no press conferences at the start, everything written off as mass hysteria.

But when the virus spread to other states, and then to other countries, hell had finally found its place on earth, nestled in every nook and cranny, every place that it could fester. Only when the murders and the cannibalism started did the meetings finally take place. Placating at best, there was nothing the governments could do, and they knew it. All it took was a single bite, or scratch if the infected had traces of the virus under their nails - any contact that could be connected back to the blood stream, and the person was as good as dead. Or undead, as it were.

Government officials across the globe started to set up quarantined areas to protect the unaffected citizens, and within weeks populations were already dwindling. Sanctions, they were deemed, were few and far between. They were the only places on earth that could guarantee any safety, run off man-power and will-power alone, but even they could not be safe forever.

Viktor and Yurio had been on vacation in Japan at the time of the outbreak, accompanied by their legal guardian, Yakov, but they had seen him whisked away to a sanction at the opposite end of the country from theirs. They had already met Yuuri at that point, weeks before disaster had befallen the nation, so they had stuck with him. They had come together, they were all one another had - and having people was important. Vital.

The day after being put into the sanction, Yuuri placed a positive pregnancy test on the table in front of Viktor, and together they had toppled into tears, begging for it to be a sick, cruel joke. But two, three, four tests later, and they were going to be fathers in nine months.

Otabek came into the picture just a few days later, following Yurio back to the place they were squatting like a lost, wet dog, and the two of them were inseparable. Otabek explained to all of them how the inner structure of the sanction worked, how getting jobs was hard unless you were brave. Unless you didn’t mind facing death head on.

Viktor had taken up the recon job against Yuuri’s best wishes, his most tearful pleas, and the three of them had been relocated to the ramshackle apartment that became home, and the two month countdown had begun.

☢

Between one breath and the next, Viktor somehow ends up asleep.

It is a mistake.

They wake to the sound of the front door being ripped off its hinges by inhuman strength, the screech of metal piercing Viktor’s ears and dragging him from the wall, Yuuri bolting up in his lap. On the other side of the door are the telltale noises: the groaning, the hissing, the gurgling of fluids stuck to the walls of throats that are dried out and only sated with blood. Yuuri opens his mouth to say something or to react, but Viktor slaps his palm over it and shakes his head, eyes fixed on the door.

It’s futile - the infected have smelled them, by now. There are no chances of them going undetected. Viktor breathes in and exhales all of his fear, as much as his body will allow.

Floorboards creak as heavy feet walk an uncoordinated path towards their room.

Where the hell are Yurio and Otabek? How have they not heard all of the ruckus?

Viktor does not have an answer, and he does not have the time to think of one. He rushes, shuffling over to reach for his black backpack and pulling out his handgun, taking one last look at Yuuri thinking, _god, please don’t let this be the last time I get to look at him. Please don’t let me die, please don’t let him die._

Nails rake along the wood of the door, teasing Viktor, and he cocks his gun.

“Viktor,” Yuuri whimpers, and the door shatters under the force of two infected that come barrelling through the splintered wood, slow motion.

It has been a long time since Viktor has seen any infected this grotesque. Gore hangs from their mouths, skin limo and sagging on exposed bones, tattered clothes hanging in uneven drapes over limbs that don’t fill the fabric out the way they might have, one time or another. Putrid odor overrides Viktor’s senses, stinging his eyes and stunning him, but he follows the snarls as one of them goes lunging at Yuuri.

The bullet catches the monster in its shoulder, knocking it back but does not come close to killing it. Its cohort comes running at Viktor from the door at the same time as the other turns its attention on him, too.

_Fuck_.

The one that had gone for Yuuri tackles into him, knocking him back against the wall with its battered shoulder square to the chest, leaving him winded as he crumples to the ground like a battered ragdoll. Viktor watches as his gun goes flying across the room, arcing through the air, clattering to the floor with earth shattering clarity that betells nothing but tragedy.

_Checkmate_.

As a child, Viktor was always told that your whole life flashed before your eyes when you were staring death in the face, but it’s simply not true. Because all Viktor sees as the snarls draw closer and louder is Yuuri’s smiling, laughing face, the strobe of club lights hitting his features and highlighting them beautifully as he allows Viktor to twirl him round, and round, and round. He hears laughter, a gentle melody, a symphony of exploding joy - he sees Yuuri spread out on the bed beneath him, mouth panting, head tossed back in bliss, feels fingers dragging down his back and the phantom sting of scratch marks the next morning. Yuuri’s sleep-easy, smiling face, the gentle stroke of his hand over Viktor’s cheek, the exchange of numbers and a promise to meet again that they keep, and keep on keeping.

Gunshots. Two of them. Pressure, collapsing onto Viktor’s body, limp weight that is cold and unfeeling in his lap. Two more gunshots, and when Viktor’s eyes slowly open, it is not the Yuuri from his past, but the Yuuri of the present. There are no bright, beckoning lights, but there is a blood splattered Yuuri standing in the room, chest heaving and gun held awkwardly in trembling hands. Viktor’s eyes dart to the floor, where the infected is, where Yuuri is pointing the gun. Viktor’s gun. A third shot, a fourth, then the thing goes still.

Viktor shrugs the infected off of his body, letting it slump to the floor as he uses the wall to support his unsteady body in order to get back to his feet.

“Yuuri-”

What ever words he'd had ready die on his tongue. Yuuri’s face is speckled with blood, lips parting as he sucks in deep breath after deep, wheezing breath. The gun in his hands shakes, and some twisted, strange part of Viktor decides that this Yuuri is more beautiful than any Yuuri he has ever seen before. The fresh glow of the kill looks good on him.

The fresh glow of _hope_ looks good on him.

Yuuri looks at Viktor, the shaggy, asymmetrical length of his hair veiling part of his face, but not enough to hide the weak, breathtaking smile he flashes at Viktor.

“They’re not taking you from me just yet.”

Viktor has never been more madly, wildly in love with anyone in his entire life.

☢

Off in the distance, across town, locked between narrow buildings, Yurio feels the misshapen, unleveled bricks pressing into his back, pointed and sharp, a cornered prey looking on as the slow, injured crawl of the infected back him further into the corner.

“ _Shit_.”

**Author's Note:**

> to clarify, yuuri is trans. so, yes, it's mpreg, but, like. not the trashy, unrealistic kind. it's the good kind - the only kind i will accept. 
> 
> follow me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/yuurikatsukiss) for more memes and idea spit balling.
> 
> leave me more nice comments so i can feel relevant to the universe.


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